The Breville Blend Active Paradox

[Irish_Tom]

Hi all,

Absolutely a case of First-World Problems but has anyone else come across this issue?

Anyone into smoothie making will likely have come across the Breville Blend Active — it's a cheap and convenient little device for whipping up a quick smoothie. It's not as powerful as it's bigger cousins, the Nutri Bullet and the Ninja, but it will handle an overnight-oats breakfast smoothie without any trouble.

However, the lids have a major design flaw. After a while, the plastic goes brittle and they crack where the thread meets the top of the lid.

'No problem', you might think, just buy a new lid — but alas, you can't buy the lids separately.

'Ok, just buy a new bottle then' — the bottles are £10.99 each (currently £7.99 on Amazon) but this seems like a terrible waste of plastic and it also introduces the BBA Paradox:

My wife and I have a breakfast smoothie each morning. As it's overnight oats, we rotate two bottles each, so we need four bottles. There's no way we're paying £43.96 (or even £31.96) for four bottles when you can buy the full 'Family Pack' (which includes the blender and four bottles) for £25.

So over the last five years, we have accumulated:

• Three motor bases
• Two blade attachments (one broke)
• 12 bottles
• One lid

In an effort to be less wasteful, I'm looking for alternatives but I'm struggling to find anything suitable. The dimensions of the tall bottle are perfect compared to the Bullet/Ninja bottles. It's just a shame the lids are so awful.

Has anyone else solved this dilemma?

 

[Martynt74]

Not ideal but

Blend using the one bottle you have and then buy 4 other bottles which will hopefully be less rubbish and use them for storage?

 

[jpaul]

use the guarantee ? but if you have to wash up the blades anyway, why wouldn't you transfer the contents to a 3rd party bottle with a spatula, and was that too ?

edit : or 3d printer ... someone must have done that

 

[Irish_Tom]

Not ideal but

Blend using the one bottle you have and then buy 4 other bottles which will hopefully be less rubbish and use them for storage?

There is a 3rd party bottle that apparently fits the Blend Active blade attachment — I might give that a go and see if those lids are any better. It's still £8.99 per bottle though — might as well just by another Family pack…

use the guarantee ? but if you have to wash up the blades anyway, why wouldn't you transfer the contents to a 3rd party bottle with a spatula, and wash that too ?

I think we're outside the standard warranty but I'll be honest, I haven't checked.

The beauty of the Blend Active is that you don't need to transfer stuff from one container to another. It's just so convenient, otherwise I'd just get a MagiMix blender and pour the contents of the jug into a different bottle.

edit : or 3d printer ... someone must have done that.

Good point, although I've read about some issues with 3D printed stuff for food. I know the plastic is meant to be food safe but there's something about it being porous once it's printed that harbours bacteria. I'll see if anyone has created a file for it.

 

[matt100]

Put the overnight oats in a sistema pot. Eat them with a spoon.

No blender required. Sorted.

That's what I did whilst I was still into them.. worked fine for me.

 

[Irish_Tom]

Put the overnight oats in a sistema pot. Eat them with a spoon.

No blender required. Sorted.

That's what I did whilst I was still into them.. worked fine for me.

We used to do it this way but it’s much more convenient to drink breakfast in the car on the way to work. My wife was rarely finishing it all (if having any) when we did it with Tupperware and spoon.

 

[matt100]

We used to do it this way but it’s much more convenient to drink breakfast in the car on the way to work. My wife was rarely finishing it all (if having any) when we did it with Tupperware and spoon.

Yeah it's a fair point, I moved away from oats because I figured I was actually eating more.

Actually ended up switching to special K but that's a whole other thing

Surprisingly difficult to find a cereal thats not basically just sugar, similarly things like smoothies and oats often end up with a terrifying amount of sugar involved. Yes it's fruit, you can still screw your body with sugar from fruit.

 

[jpaul]

... this is part of the modern flexible job contract ... they provide facilities like a microwave and tea/coffee facilities so you can have cereal/porridge arriving at work earlier,
missing the rush hour , to the mutual benefit of all parties.

 

[Irish_Tom]

Yeah it's a fair point, I moved away from oats because I figured I was actually eating more.

Actually ended up switching to special K but that's a whole other thing

Surprisingly difficult to find a cereal thats not basically just sugar, similarly things like smoothies and oats often end up with a terrifying amount of sugar involved. Yes it's fruit, you can still screw your body with sugar from fruit.

Very true, avoiding sugar can be difficult.

I find 30g oats, 50g blueberries, 1 banana, 200ml water and 100ml of milk makes for a decent breakfast — keeps me full until lunchtime and no sugar crash.

... this is part of the modern flexible job contract ... they provide facilities like a microwave and tea/coffee facilities so you can have cereal/porridge arriving at work earlier,
missing the rush hour , to the mutual benefit of all parties.

I’d rather Breville just sold replacement lids to be honest.

 

[jpaul]

Blitzing oats seems a bit stoic, doesn't it diminish their texture/taste/appeal ... and adversely increase GI.

[
I need to do some research on blue-berries - they usually have a lot of eco chilled miles on them, have they preserved their anti-oxidant ambitions ? and flavour+skin thickness is often disappointing;
so grapefruit/pineapple/apple, is more my breakfast choice. .. with the fruits mass, travel deterioration of dietary benefits is (strawman) less ? apples typically uk anyway.

... we have veganism/vegetarians .... what is the person making dietary choice on the basis of the environment called ?

EDIT: starting my (trumping) low carbon diet

]

 

[Scam]

I'm never convinced with breakfast smoothies. Oats or otherwise. As said above just do overnight oats with some banana/blueberries etc. At least you're getting the fibre goodness that way, and I'm sure it'll keep you full for longer.

 

[Skillmister]

I'm never convinced with breakfast smoothies. Oats or otherwise. As said above just do overnight oats with some banana/blueberries etc. At least you're getting the fibre goodness that way, and I'm sure it'll keep you full for longer.

Read the OP. Seems they are doing overnight oats and blending for ease of consumption

 

[Scam]

Read the OP. Seems they are doing overnight oats and blending for ease of consumption

I know that and I did read the OP. I'd say get up 20mins earlier and allow time for breakfast properly.

 

[Irish_Tom]

I know that and I did read the OP. I'd say get up 20mins earlier and allow time for breakfast properly.

With a 10-month old in the house, I’ll take the extra 20 minutes in bed thanks.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

I've never snapped a lid and I've been using them for four years. Do you wash them in the dishwasher or really crank them down when screwing them on?

 

[Irish_Tom]

I've never snapped a lid and I've been using them for four years. Do you wash them in the dishwasher or really crank them down when screwing them on?

Yes to the dishwasher, no to the cranking them down.

A colleague screws his water bottle lid on so tight that you have to be He-Man to unscrew it, but that ain’t me.

 

[jpaul]

yes ... I think as he's implying a dishwasher at 60c? is going to have a big impact on lifespan/fragility.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6213121/

Concerning the fatigue behavior, the fatigue limit of PC-ABS and ABS is slightly improved at low temperature. At high temperature, PC-ABS reduces its fatigue limit of about 10% while ABS shows a deep reduction of more than half respect to the fatigue limit at room temperature.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Yes to the dishwasher, no to the cranking them down.

A colleague screws his water bottle lid on so tight that you have to be He-Man to unscrew it, but that ain’t me.

Don't put it in the dishwasher - hand wash only. Even though they advertise them as dishwasher safe, the salts and high temps degrade nearly all plastic.

 

[Yaayuh!]

I've never really understood the whole all-in-one smoothie bottle thing. We've got a hand-held Braun blender with attachments etc we've had for about 10 years we use for all sorts of things when cooking and also for making smoothies.

Can't you just get a separate blender and drinking bottle?

 

[MikeTheNative]

I just bought a few cheap protein shakers of amazon. Do the mixing in the acti bottle then just pour into the shaker, you can get them for around £3 on amazon.